Billie’s Sisters
Back row: Billie and Lee
Front row: Dora, Helen (Honey), and Ethel
A typewritten text my mom received from her Aunt Billie some years ago.
I understood from my eldest sister that my grandfather (Daniel Coenraad Luyt 1836-1870 – E20) was a locksmith by trade (everyone had to have a trade in those days). He did not use his trade but owned fishing boats and spent much time drinking coffee on his stoep waiting for the boats to come in at Rogge Bay. There I suppose the fish was sold and the fishermen paid etc. When he died (aged 34) he left a wife and 5 children and not much. The wife had to do her own housework and much ironing. Overheated in face she answered the door and developed crysipelas in her face. She was so upset and embarrassed at this, that she became a recluse and died. The boys went to their godfathers and the 2 girls went to their Aunt Solomon (Anna Francina Verster Luyt born 1839 E21 who married Edward A.P. Solomon) and eventually did millinery. My grandparents in their day must have lived in some style. After a dinner party, my Dad went into the diningroom and drank the dregs left in the wine glasses (etiquette not to drain your glass). He was about 4 years old, became very drunk and sick and never touched alcohol again in his lifetime. He was fair of skin and many a time received a whipping on top of his sunburn for going to swim at Rogge Bay. After his mother died, he was taken to live with his uncle and aunt at Ceres (Gabriel Jacobus Luyt 1845-1898 E24) and put to work in the business. His uncle then had no children and when they arrived they looked upon Dad as an older brother. Dad, by the way, was Gabriel Jacobus Luyt, known in the family as Uncle James (born 1864 in Long Street, Cape Town.
As time went on Dad thought his prospects poor so he went to an Uncle Johnny in the OFS and worked for him (possibly Johan Godfried Luyt 1852-1913 E27). This uncle invited his niece, my Mom, from Uitenhage to the opening of the railway in OFS and all the functions. Here Dad met Mom and fell in love. His Ceres uncle begged him to return which he did. Then he went to Uitenhage and married Mom, going to Zuurberg Sanatorium for their honeymoon.
The business in Ceres was probably an agency for a Cape Town woolbroker. Dad traveled by Cape cart in the Koue Bokkeveld buying up wool clips on his behalf and stocked basic foods and clothing etc at the Ceres store for sale to farmers. I know he ordered my Mother’s best frocks by catalogue from a firm in England. She complained he chose her frocks for a much older woman.
My Mother (Ethel Mildred Luyt 1878-1956 F79) was the eldest of 11 children (3 died in infancy and 1 at the age of 10 (from diabetes I think) and lived with her parents in Caledon Street, Uitenhage. My grandfather (Coenraad Luyt 1848-1928 E37) was a clerk in the municipality. He married Helen Mary Roberts born 1855 in St Pancras St, off Tottenham Court Road, London, and died in 1903). She was the daughter of Edward and Sarah Sophia Roberts of London. I was told her Mother had received the Freedom of the City of London. Mom told me of picnics in the Swartkops River; excursions into the bush to collect Gwarrie berries, Sunday School picnics at Coerney. They belonged to the Methodist Church (Vivienne was told Congregational Church). I don’t know what school my Mom attended but she trained as a Needlework teacher at Riebeek College and taught there until her marriage. (Vivienne visited Riebeek College and found a framed photograph hanging on the wall depicting a group of young women, including Ethel Luyt, and was told that girls educated at the school often stayed on as monitors or student teachers, teaching the younger girls. The impression was therefore created that she had definitely been educated at Riebeek College). A document in her beautiful handwriting is cemented in with the Foundation Stone at Riebeek College.
They were not well off but there was always plenty of milk and she only drank tea when she married. Mom was very attached to her Ouma Bella (Isabella Servasina Luyt born Knap 1823-1902 – D9 whose father JL Knap had come from Baden-Am-Rhein, Germany). Billie Fourie was named after her but the Isabella was changed to Sibylla. Mom often visited Ouma Bella who made the most delicious sugarsticks which Dorrie and I attempted when we were 12 years old, pulling the sticky substance from a nail in the wall. (Very likely Vivienne has the old recipe book) She also made burnt almonds and other old Cape Dutch sweets.
My Mom was 21 when she married and moved to Ceres. With her first child my father was away traveling in the Koue Bokkeveld and the doctor was in jail (prisoner in Boer War) so she was delivered of Helen by a Hottentot midwife at home. I hope she had friends to advise her, poor lady.
Entertainments were musical evenings. My Mother would play the piano and my father would sing. He also played the violin.
Daughters arrived at 3 year intervals and then a son. My father was very proud of his son and heir (Johan Coenraad de Roubaix 1910). At that time, his brother’s daughter and son lived with him. His brother (Daniel Coenraad Luyt 1868-1938 F23) had been a prisoner-of-war in Bermuda so he sent his two elder children to Dad. His wife and baby were in a concentration camp and both died there (this is not correct but a popular theory in the family – Vivienne eventually obtained wife Winnie’s death certificate which recorded her death, and presumably that of her child, as taking place in her home in Frankfurt in 1904 and from a letter written by Coenie in 1902 to Billie’s father, it appears that Winnie and the three children had been with her family in Ceres for the duration of Coenie’s absence. To return to the story of the only son, Coenie’s daughter Dora, was sickening for whooping cough when Mom comforted her by letting her lie next to her on the bed while she fed her son. Unfortunately the baby contracted the whooping cough and did not survive. My father still hoped for a son when I arrived 3 years later.
We had a fairly large house with a fruit garden and many a smack the older children got for eating half-ripe naartjies, denying they had done so although they smelled strongly of the fruit. Mom did not have a housekeeping allowance and it aggravated her to have to send a maid to ask Dad for half-a-crown to buy a leg of mutton (half-a-crown = 25 cents). Maids were cheap in those days and Mom was very much the housewife, also knitting and sewing all our clothes and underwear. We wore fine calico bloomers, chemises, petticoats and later home-made liberty bodices till I left school, garters for stockings and later suspenders attached to liberty bodices. I had left school when I bought my first bra and elastic girdle and how shocked Helen was when I wore separates and did not have a figure all one block. She thought we (Dorrie and I) were decadent but Mom allowed it when I declared “Fashions change!”
The older girls attended school in Ceres and spoke Afrikaans or Dutch there but as Mom was English-speaking all spoke English at home. When I was a year old my Father took a partner in the business and left him to manage it, and the family moved to Cape Town for their education. Dad bought a house at Sea Point but my Mother was afraid for her daughters’ virtue – all the goings-on on the beach! Helen and Ethel attended Ellerslie Girls’ High School. Helen was very taken aback when someone inquired whether she had her “stationery” (exercise books etc) and could not think what they meant. She always remained more Afrikaans than the rest. Shortly afterwards we moved to a house at Kenilworth. My father set himself up in an office in Cape Town as an estate agent, sharing it with a partner, Charles Reynolds. They also gave a desk to a Mrs Versfeld who wrote the fashion and gossip columns of the Ladies Home Journal. She was a smart woman and I suppose Mrs Reynolds and Mom did not always feel too pleased about it but no harm came.
I still remember a few incidents at Kenilworth. Most Saturday afternoons we were sent to a matinee at Claremont bioscope. I was pushed in a pushcart by a Coloured maid who also attended the matinee. There I must have seen Charlie Chaplin peel a banana, bite off a piece and throw the rest away, then promptly slip on it and fall on his bottom. I tried the same at home, hoping a horse hitched to a car would slip. I never ate a banana again, much to my sisters’ delight. One day I watched my Mom sowing seeds in a box, I squatting on my haunches in the sun. She told me to fetch a hat but I refused and developed sunstroke (perhaps flu) and squinted a while thereafter. (Photo with Vivienne)
The neighbourhood at Kenilworth was deteriorating so Dad sold the house. It was wartime (World War I) so he hired a house at Mowbray in Long Street for the duration. There I argued with a friend that I was going on for 4 and NOT 3.1/2 years old. It was referred to as a Scotch house: you entered first a small hall with parents’ bedroom on right and withdrawingroom or parlour on left, then through hanging curtains –strings of plush- a central room which was both kitchen and diningroom and had a black coal stove. Bedrooms led off this and a long glassed-in room which was the scullery. The bucket-type toilet was outside and the buckets collected and exchanged twice a week by the nightsoil men and cart.
There at twilight I watched the lamplighter with his ladder light the street gas lamp, went to the Jewish corner shop to buy honeycomb sweets and large flat toffees for a penny, also sugarsticks, dashed to pick up and suck little pieces of ice when the ice cart delivered blocks of ice to various houses. He would put a bag on is back, pick up a block of ice with an iron hook, carry the ice on his back and off to a house. Opposite our house was a large field, Jones’s Field. My Dad persuaded Mom to go for an outing with him and I was left in Helen’s care. She was persuaded to play French Cricket (cricket bat and hard ball). I was perched on a large rock that was also the stumps. Unfortunately Helen missed the ball and it hit me on the mouth – much blood and howling. My front teeth eventually turned black and were extracted and my poor Mom blamed herself for that accident which she reckoned was the cause of my lifelong sinusitis. I never blamed her and hope my children have forgiven my shortcomings as a mother.
When Armstice was declared, my Dad gave us each a golden sovereign and I was allowed to hold it in my hand and go to play on Jones’s field during the celebrations. A PO account was opened for each of us.
At 5, I went to Rustenburg Girls’ High School. I walked with my sisters to Mowbray Fountain (horse fountain at the junction of Durban and Main Roads) , then was put on a tram with a card with my name and address pinned to my frock. The sisters walked all the way. Sometimes I saved my penny return fare walking all the way home and buying a penny icecream in a cone, by which time my Dad was frantic with worry at lunchtime at home.
A childless couple gave a Christmas party for the neighbourhood’s small children – cakes and sweets and each child to do an item of entertainment. My effort was: “There’s a spider on the wall – That’s all” and curtsey. The same gentleman would dress up as Father Christmas with a bag of Macintosh’s toffees on his back, throw the sweets in the air to be scrambled for by the children. One year a child was run over. The old man was broken-hearted and gave up his role. We were greatly excited by a family picnic to Camps Bay. We traveled by tram carrying the day’s food, water and home-made lemon syrup. My Mom dressed in fancy hat, light coat, shoes and stockings as if for a shopping jaunt. Of course a little wave wet my bloomers and I spent the rest of the time bare-bottomed with my bloomers on a rock to dry. We had no bathing costumes. Wartime was hard on parents and we had few toys. We had
small dolls a few inches long with stuffed bodies, painted black hair and porcelain arms and legs from elbow and knee down. I had a painted calico stuffed doll called a rag doll. One year for Christmas we each received a shilling (10 cents). Dorrie and I each bought a slate and pencil. I knew about soap bubble pipes because in a little back room I used my father’s pipes for such a purpose. My Mom caught me and threatened punishment but I thought her memory was short and was soon at it again, this time saved from the brush on my backside by my elder sister.
After the War the Flu Epidemic – approx 140 000 died of flu in SA 1918-19. We all wore little bags of camphor round our necks and sucked lemons but we all had it. It weakened my Dad’s heart. Lilian was born when my Mom had double pneumonia but she survived. My father’s sister was a mid-wife and nursed my Mom. My father’s adoptive aunt was once told by a fortune teller that she would be poisoned. When she became slightly senile she decided my Mom would be the poisoner. After grace she would suddenly exchange her dinner plate with one of the children. When she came to stay she would bring my Mom badly cured dassie skins for a kaross and how they stank till we threw them away on her departure. She liked to have a snack at night and came prepared with grated biltong etc in her trunk. She complained to her doctor son that ants troubled her snacks and he gave her some Cooper’s Dip. One night at our house she took a handful of this mistaking it for biltong but my Mom gave her an emetic and the doctor fixed her. Ethel remembers running down the street in her nightgown to call the doctor and his giving her a lift back to the house in his Cape Cart (no telephone then). Later I developed Scarlet Fever and for the baby’s sake (Lillian Mary was born 1918) was sent to the fever hospital (The Somerset in Green Point). I spent 6 weeks there – really quite happily – with all the other children and one Indian. Each Wednesday and Sunday, our families came to visit and chat to us through a glass door. Each visit we asked the sister for a hanky and bawled when our visitors left, then ran out to see what sweets we had been brought. It was all shared among the lot at our supper. On return home, I was given a doll for my birthday – what a disappointment. She had a composition head and stuffed body – no teeth and no eyes to open and close. I said nothing.
Mr Reynolds had a small farm on the corner of Twickenham Road and Durban (on the Cape Town side). In summer Ethel, Dorrie and I would set out at 7 am with 2 baskets to fetch grapes – gorgeous grapes, and the walk seemed so far and exciting like going into the country – no Pinelands yet. It was many years later that Mr Louw whose dairy cows were milked next door to our house bought a small farm on the Liesbeek River in Durban Road and sold green mealies at 1.1/2 pence each (1.1/4 cents).
My Dad knew his heart was no longer very good and wanted to settle in his own house so he bough Abbotsford, 54 Alma Road, Rosebank for 2000 pounds sterling (R4000). It had a cottage and coach house in the back yard. Actually the cottage was a school run by a Miss Abbot many years before. My Dad’s heart deteriorated and he spent most of the day on a chaise longue. He became so bored that the doctor allowed him to return to work but that first day he died of a heart attack in the lobby of the ticket office of the Rosebank railway station. We were called home from school but none of us dreamt of death. My Mom, Lee and I did not attend the funeral but I saw the hearse with its black horses and the black plumes on their heads followed by 2 cabs with Malay drivers wearing their pointed straw hats. In mourning my Mom wore a black hat, with a thick black crepe eil to her shoulders. She was caught that day with 2 halfpence in her purse. Mr Reynolds arranged her financial affairs. My eldest sister had completed her BA and had inherited sufficient money to complete her T1 after which she helped my Mom financially.
Most residential communities had an Indian shop in their midst where you could buy groceries, cigarettes, bread, fruit etc if you ran short. It was my job to run to the Indian every morning for bread for breakfast. The only transport we had was tram and train so we did a great deal of walking. We walked to and from Rustenburg and also the DRC church at Rondebosch (twice a Sunday for me as I attended church in the morning and Sunday School in the afternoons. We each possessed one navy box-pleated gymnasium costume with two long-sleeved blueTobralco blouses, navy bloomers, black stockings, black shoes, and a navy cardigan, as well as a white Sunday dress and white panama hat with school colours and badge. Later blazers came into fashion. Home wear consisted of Tobralco frocks in summer and in winter for best usually a pleated serge skirt and jersey. I loved going to school and was proud of being a Rustybug – proud of my school’s historical background. The day I left I sat on the pavement outside and wept.
Living so close to Campground Road we spent much time under the pine trees collecting dennebal pitte for tameletjie sweets and roaming on the common. Later we went walking to Pinelands, Claremont, Groote Schuur, Kirstenbosch and once as far as Retreat. Beyond Plumstead there were no houses only Port Jackson bush so we became afraid and took the train at Retreat back to Rosebank. We made up a party of old Rustybug girls and hiked from Sea Point to Landudno for the day. Those were the days of no boy friends yet and cheap entertainment. In Std IX I used to spend a weekend with a classmate. Her father was a doctor and while he did his rounds he used to leave us at the Pavilion on Woodstock beach to paddle. There were always many dead fish on the beach. His was the first motor car I drove in.
Ethel was in the UCT first netball team. Each season they played a match against the medical students and the first rugby team. Then she would invite some of these fellows and girl friends to a home dancing party. My mother served lemon syrup and tea, also the most gorgeous cakes baked in her coal stove. We played gramophone records. Then I too gave a few similar parties but by then young men wanted beer or hard drinks and soon the house parties died out but they were great fun.
Up to Std VI I ad never been away for a holiday except to Worcester where I lay on my uncle’s surgery table (Dr Julian Luyt) while he removed my tonsils and his wife, a nurse, gave me chloroform. Later my cousin showed me a bloody mess wrapped in newspaper in the dustbin and we solemnly contemplated my tonsils. He became a doctor too. Then Uncle Richard brought young Richard to stay with his relatives and took me to Worcester for 10 days. There I met Blikkies Buyskes who later came as a boarder to Rondebosch Boys’ High and whose life my mother saved by filling him up with cakes and jam tarts when he came to Sunday tea. He invited me to a matinee of “The Silver Hawk” in Cape Town. However when it came to the Matric Dance he explained that I was under 16 years so he invited Ethel who was at UCT. She wore an ankle-length homemade frock and a pair of suede shoes. I had no frock anyway for such an occasion. Years later I was invited to Commemoration Ball at UCT and borrowed Ethel’s first bought evening dress which was far too big for me. The first evening dress bought for me was a maize-coloured satin, flared skirt with low back and a big bow of same material at the back, for an Old Girls’ dance at Rustenburg. Dolly Martienssen provided all the partners for our group and afterwards we performed a cabaret act in her garage for the fellows – dressed in satin slacks and tops and blackcardboard top hats – The Seven Satin Sisters. One of thefellows, Roy, came to see me afterwards. He was being transferred to Rhodesia and wanted me to become engaged before he left – no go. I suppose he thought there were no girls in Rhodesia Being good at Latin I was encouraged to take Greek at school so I gave up History. In Std IX the Greek teacher suddenly blossomed and got married and we (2) had to study alone. Much of the time I spent chatting about an engineering student at UCT I had met. Eventually we got a retired teacher. She had travelled widely in Greece and we loved hearing about Greek history and theatre et. I scraped through Matric with an E in Greek. I thought I would be a teacher like my sisters so enrolled at UCT for Lower Secondary It was hardly worthwhile to take train and bus so I used to walk. I had English at 9 am, Botany at 11 am, Botany Practical from 2-4 pm and Afrikaans at the tope of the Avenue at 5 pm. I spent the next 2 months walking and running. I had had measles badly in the December va and lost a lot of weight so came down with a massive attack of scalp eczema My hair was shaved off and I spent the next 4 months putting starch and boracic plaster on my head. The first trial lesson I gave on my return was pretty useless. The Prof told me I would never make a teacher. Still I insisted on writing the final exams, after flu, and of course failed the lot. I then took a secretarial training. The first permanent job I got was with a wool-broking firm but after a year I was appointed as a shorthand typist in the Exams Department of the Education Department in Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town. I then attended the Tech at night until I passed my promotion exams in Shorthand, Snelskrif and Typing for the Public Service. I started at 9 pounds 6s 8d and after six years got married earning 15 pounds. I bought myself a Jones Family Sewing machine wholesale through my boss for 5 pounds and received a dinner service as a wedding present My mother said she could not give me a wedding reception but Louis and I wished to entertain our office staffs so I hired a caterer to serve tea and snacks at my home and Louis ordered the drinks. My mother put a notice in the paper that she was at home for relatives and friends a few days beforehand. We were married at DRC Rondebosch. My Mom gave me away, Lee was bridesmaid and Norman Emslie bestman. Louis was supposed to fetch me at the end of the aisle but he did not recognize the wedding march so I had to hiss at him. Fortunately I was in a good mood so forgave him. After the reception we left by car dragging an old shoe and a few empty tins which we removed as soon as we were out of sight. We stopped at a garage to have the confetti blown out and spent the first night at Paarl. Still confetti poured out of our cases. The next night we were at the Grand Hotel in Port Elizabeth. That night there was a thunderstorm and Louis half asleep thought it was a naval battle and got up to watch the action from the window. War was expected (2 October 1939). We spent our honeymoon on the farm and at East London. At the Grand I met the stepsister of a previous gentleman friend. She alerted him and he was at dinner to greet me but I was too shy to introduce Louis.
Before I married my Mom became worried abut the condition of her house. It needed repairs and painting. None of us were competent to supervise the job and anyway her lawyers refused to allow her more of the capital for the job. My Mom inherited only the usufruct of my father’s money. It was a great worry so I advised her to sell. She let it go at 1400 pounds. While I was on honeymoon Helen found Tuckaway for her near the station and they disposed of unnecessary rubbish including my Dad’s stamp collection! Ethel, Philip and Viv had been living with Mom but they found accommodation near Rondebosch station and Louis and I moved into a flat at Rosebank station. We had a lovely time then. Mom and I used to meet Ethel at Rondebosch Town Hall Farmers’ Market, do our shopping and have tea with Ethel.
In those days, ladies called and left their visiting cards stating their “At Home” day and eventually Mom and I called leaving her cards. At Home days were exciting and al at home helped. The silver was polished and everything else. Tables had either a red or green plush cloth with a fringe of bobbles (table legs must not be seen), the embroidered tea clothes and napkins were highly starched and tray and tea service set out on the dining table. Large iced cakes with a ruffle round the sides and small cakes were served with tea – no paper serviettes or doileys. Most ladies had a silver epergne with flowers in the glass vases as a centre piece and there was often chat of who had gone “Home” (England) on furlough.
I started seeking work in 1931 when the Depression was still bad. The first job offered me was 5 pounds a month and to sign a contract for 6 months. I refused. The next was at Kramers a woolbroker at 7 pounds 10s a month which I accepted. Then I was appointed in the Public Service at 9 pounds 6s 8d in 1932. Dorrie with a Lower Primary Certificate started teaching at Ceres at 10 pounds a month. When we married Louis owned a car and his basic salary was about 30 pounds a month earning extra for sealing and living free on the ship. He bought a lounge suite, present diningroom suite, our bedroom suite and tea wagon. I bought bedspreads, blankets, 2 bedside mats, a set of 7 pots, pan roasting pot, sheets, pillows cases, towels and trousseau. We later added to this. Our rent of flat was 8 pounds 10s plus 1 pound for garage. Later rent of Troy, our house in Hilton Road, Mowbray, was 8 pounds 10s. The maid’s salary rose to 3 pounds per month but by then we had bought a washing machine, stove and fridge at Troy. At that time Louis was allowed to take over the “Slops” chest and trade like a shop with the people of the islands and added to his sealing money. After a few years the Public Service queried this and Louis began to think of resigning. To stock up Louis borrowed 500 pounds from Helen and paid interest and soon repaid the debt. We paid 30 pounds for a settee and 2 armchairs (Danie – son-in-law) has one chair. After 20 years the arms were shabby and I paid over 60 pounds for 5 occasional chairs.
Here ends the story.